Spirit Lights

“Concentric circles,” he said, “of light.”

We were sitting cross legged around the fire, sharing feathers and stories, speaking through the flames to the cosmos.

“Pulsing at the same frequency as the waves of the sea. The entire sky,” he said, “was lit up.”

“Where was that?” I asked.

“The Yukon.”

The sun was setting and sent waves of gold and purple across the mountain meadow behind us as the first planet poked through the firmament. We each, in our own way, paused to notice the changing sky, the shifting landscape.

I remembered a story I had heard of an American Indian tribe who, back in the olden days, would migrate north each year to “drink in the lights”, breathing in the dancing greens and blues from the winter sky, pulling those cosmic hues into their bodies, healing their hearts, their minds. I imagined their furs and skins, the snow up to their knees, their reverence for living.

A few months earlier, our own small family had found ourselves tucked into deep winter like foxes, burrowed quietly into the mountain among the howling coyote and wild mule deer, clinging to life. I wrote poems then, from the rocking chair by candlelight, while our daughter slept in my arms.

             even if, 
             words could speak
             to the vast expanses 
             of the human spirit,
             so uncharted is this
             transformation
             I wouldn't know
             which ones to use

The winter carved away our assumptions and ingratitude as we melted snow and carried juniper branches through ice and wind. We kept the fire alive for months, day and night. We came to know that the fire is a holy being. Our world turned white, silent, and cold. We purified.

            I feel as though
            I am holding back
            the world of death
            from blowing down
            our wooden door

It was during those icy cold winter nights where the sky seemed most alive to us. After the mile hike up the snowy mountainside to our home, the sky lit up with the most pristine illumination, so crisp and pure. The snow covered mountain, the moon, Venus; the alignment, the smoke rising, the precious fire and holy wood, the echoing stillness; everything crisp and pure. Holy and blue. I could feel the spirits come alive.

“Those were the best northern lights I have ever seen,” my friend continued.

Sparks flew skywards as we each imagined that kind of beauty. I was holding a gift of sweetgrass in one hand and (the gift of) my daughter in the other. My partner quietly disappeared to milk the goats. The night covered the earth and we watched the flames dance through the sky.